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Month: August 2016

The Process improvement and control diagram above explicitly emphasises the importance of Ingenuity and Creativity in continuous learning for sustainable governance.

It is clear that in a resource constrained environment, where, as identified below, Ingenuity and Creativity are also constrained, all efforts to their creation and application must be to the sole aim of sustainable governance in a democracy. To

“identify, maximise and defend the Essential Value available to society created and retained over time and to distribute it equitably at continually reducing Resource Intensity and Failure demand”

It is the fact that in any organisation or society, Ingenuity and Creativity are limited. This was identified by Thomas Homer in his book ‘The Ingenuity Gap‘ and it was also identified as a problem in the UK in an Ofsted Report as a missing element in education.

Sugata Mitra’s experiments in self-teaching detailed here in the TED Talk he gave in 2010, have virtually proved that learning is an emergent property when small groups of students have access to information they can share. He provides at the end of the Talk a definition.

“Education is a Self Organising System where Learning is an Emergent Phenomenon”

We are failing our learners if we do not lever the potential of social media and the internet to liberate the creativity all children possess and largely lose as they grow up with the educational model we have used since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution . Ken Robinson makes this point in probably one of the most watched TED Talks, Do Schools Kill Creativity.

The problem, of course, is not with the children, it is with Society, Teachers and Industry; simply because they were not exposed to this concept of ‘emergent learning’ and the unlimited expectations of their mentors as they grew up.

In reality out traditional educational model never served, but in this time of exponential change,where more children will be passing through education in the next fifty years than have ever done, we cannot create inspirational teachers fast enough to liberate the necessary creativity that will enable us to solve the problems presented in the One Planet World we now inhabit.

The other key issue of course is the necessity we have to reduce the resource and carbon intensity of SystemUK by considerable amounts.

We must liberate the creativity to do this by design, or resource availability, at a price we can afford to pay as a society, or the Earth will do it for us.

In all this a key point is being missed and this is the need to maintain and generate the ‘tacit’ skills our society requires.

All around us we are bombarded with messages telling us that we need to change, that the Earth is warming, that oil is peaking or we are in an power crisis. The messages are insistent and shrill but diverse and incoherent and all about our symptoms rather than the addiction we suffer, the hugely ineffective use of the resources and sinks that our only planet, the Earth, provides for us. As a result we are either paralysed into inaction or taking action that is neither systemic nor joined-up, to use a much hackneyed political expression.

Clearly the Earth as a ‘system’ is dynamic and complex and any attempt to describe it quantitatively and accurately is unlikely to lead to any clearer picture of useful action. What we need is a ‘mind model’, something that is powerful and evocative enough to provoke the right questions of societies, communities and organisations.A Mind Model

‘A conceptual model of understanding, that once created, gives us the power to extract more information from it, than went into creating it.’ Such a conceptual, or mind model is the One Planet Equation.

The One Planet Equation

We often are told we are enjoying a three planet lifestyle and this tells us that what we are doing is clearly not a sustainable state of affairs, but it is not clear from this what we need to do. We have in fact only ‘One Planet’ so the left hand side of our equation in a ‘resource constrained’ environment is fixed at 1.

The right hand side is made up of the population, their consumption of goods and services, and a factor which balances the equation. P x C x RI

There are clearly many interactions taking place here and there are inequities in resource distribution among individuals and societies; also the starting point assumes the footprint is no larger than the planet, however, a simple analysis shows us exactly what we need to do and gives us a paradigm in which we can form the correct questions to ask of ourselves, our institutions and our organisations.

We also express the population, consumption and resource factor, or intensity, aggregated as 1 lot of population and Consumption with a Resource Intensity of 1.

So at our starting point we have 1 = P x C x RI or 1 = 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 and as we move forward from this point, the 1 planet remains the same so the right hand product always has to equal one. The only way this can happen in a resourced constrained environment is if the Resource Intensity, (RI) is never more than 1/PC.

Simple compound interest does the rest and we can quickly see that if population stays the same and consumption grows at 5% for 40 years 1/PC is approximately 1/7 and if population grows at the predicted rate and consumption grew at 10% then 1/PC would have to be no greater than 1/70.

In round terms we would need to reduce Resource Intensity by a factor of between 10 and 100 by 2050. We can call this process dematerialisation. This can also be expressed as the ‘first law of sustainability’ that in a resource constrained environment, goods and services can only grow at the rate at which they can be dematerialised

Resource Intensities

Whilst the above analysis is explicit in what we need to achieve, it will be useful if we can apportion Resource Intensities, within societies, communities and organisations.

A useful division includes

The Built Environment

Governance

Security

Mobility

Fulfillment

Learning

Failure Demand

It is clear from this list that they all overlap, which highlights the need to take a systems based view.

Intensity and Value Added

In this analysis there are areas that are beyond its scope, as the process with the least Resource Intensity is the one that doesn’t exist, and only society, communities, organisations and individuals can decide which are ‘essential’ and add value and which should be eliminated. For example, if a society considers unlimited, discretionary air travel adds value, then businesses will provide it. Whether this is a viable business model in a resource constrained future is a separate issue.

Loss and Genichi Taguchi

Once we have decided whether a process is essential within the bounds of our notion of added value, we have to decide if it is the right process to achieve the desired end and that it is carried out, without loss, correctly every time. That is, we have to be effective, by doing the right thing, right and then efficient, by doing it right every time.

Genichi Taguchi inspirationally made the connection that processes without loss were of perfect ‘quality’ and conversely, that less than perfect quality created a ‘loss to society’. It is also important to note that on a resource constrained planet, environmental and social losses can be as much, and perhaps more important than conventional economic ones.

In terms of this article, that loss results in an increase in the process ‘resource intensity’.

Intensity of Failure Demand

“Failure Demand’ is caused by a failure to do something, or do something right for the customer and ‘Value Demand’ – is what the system exists to provide”, – John Seddon. It is evident that such failure demand within systems will increase their Resource Intensity.

In the list above ‘failure demand’ is shown separately for emphasis but is, in reality, incorporated in the Resource Intensity resulting from the creation, use and disposal of the other categories. The Resource Intensity of Learning (RIoL) for example.

Continual Improvement

We have in the past thought that we can treat losses in processes as separate and that quality was a function within an organisation, focused on the customer, rather than that which

“Maximises the Essential Value added to and retained by society resulting from the creation, use and disposal of products and services”

This must necessarily involve all an organisation’s stakeholders. It should also be stated, relating back, that it is society that decides what ‘adds value’ within its existent paradigm.

Losses in processes and systems can be environmental, social and economic and are best minimised by seeing the goal of sustainability as a journey of integrated, continual, quality improvement.

Creativity and Ingenuity

Shewhart created his circle of improvement, Plan, Do, Check, Act and it has stood the test of time but it doesn’t explicitly show the need for the creativity and ingenuity required to drive, integrated continual improvement, towards system sustainability.

A Virtuous Circle that, using ‘in process control’ and a synergy of the entire organisation’s stakeholders and their combined knowledge and skills will enable process learning and after sensing and absorbing the external signals will liberate the creativity and ingenuity within to drive the process design in the direction of sustainability. As the process becomes more sustainable the losses are by definition minimised, reducing the need for appraisal costs and eliminating the costs and risks of internal and most importantly, external failures. With minimised costs and no external failures the profitability, public perception and value added to society are maximised.

The Right Questions

We have reached a point in our evolution as societies where innovation will shortly transition from being driven by technology and will by driven by resource constraints. It important that as societies, communities and organisations we ask the right questions based on the tenets that

our future is resource constrained

humans are creative and enterprising

These two tenets will ensure that as we transition into our resource constrained future, some organisations will disappear and be replaced; others, with exceptional strategic leadership and management, might survive and grow.

The task is simple, if not easy to accomplish, and again can by reduced to two key questions

Is our business model relevant to such a future?

Does our leadership and management, enable the liberation of the creativity required to continually reduce the resource intensity of the goods and services we produce, consume and dispose of?

This will need the most massive effort of ‘quality improvement’ the world has yet seen.

Conclusion

The message is clear; we have to change, but how? Our symptoms are plain for all to see but our addiction, the vast and hugely ineffective deployment of resources to create, use and dispose of the products and services we consume, remains untreated. Calling this addiction, Affluenza may be a representation of the truth in the developed Western Economies but it does not make clear the path we must follow to effect a cure.

Simply exhorting people to consume less is ineffective as is calling certain Jobs, Products and services, Green. There are many ‘essential’ jobs, products and services that cannot be considered in this light, many in the public sector, but their resource intensity is crucial in any attempt to balance the One Planet Equation. In the context of this balancing we can say that

‘There are no such things as ‘Green’ jobs, products or services, only those that increase or reduce the ‘Resource Intensity of Society’

This also highlights the absurdity of the Reductionist Paradigm, where Vauxhall Motors, in an ISO14001 video trumpeted energy savings in the order of £1m with a payback of 10 months, when GM should have been asking

“How do we evolve our business model and strategy to continually reduce the ‘resource intensity of mobility?”

Finally, the One Planet Equation is immutable, it drives our futures whether we choose to ignore it or not, and we have no option but to enter the future, either by design or negligence. Better, as far as possible by design.

In a previous post it was deduced that in a Society(system) encountering energy and resource constraints the sole aim of the organisation of governance is to

“identify, maximise and defend the Essential Value to Society created and retained over time and to distribute it equitably at continually reducing Resource Intensity and Failure demand”

The question then arises “what is the role that education can and indeed must play in enabling this; through its output in terms of human resources, creativity and ingenuity; and its consumption of resources in the process?”

Clearly there is a conflict here as traditionally an education has been seen, at least since the Enlightenment, as enabling the liberation of the human spirit and the individual, without thought of constraints. That the individual and the collective could all attain their needs and wants, without constraint or considering the needs of the system, with the ‘right education’

This is an ideal that cannot be fully met when constraints exist, but its essence must be retained if the individual is thrive and create Essential Value in their own life and at the same time contribute to the enlarging of the pool of Essential Value available to Society.

The crucial question here is “what is Essential Value?” This will depend on the perceived needs of a society, its culture and the resources available to it. In general Essential Value is as outlined in this post.

In the pursuit and creation of identified Essential Value three issues arise

Creativity and Ingenuity are limited in any society.

There can only be a probability that an action can create the desired Essential Value.

Unconnected activity or research might produce the knowledge to, or actually generate the required Essential Value.

The Governance Sustainability flow diagram below attempts to illustrate this by placing Education outside the improvement loop and feeding into it and from it.

In the light of what has been stated above can we now extract a definition ofEducational Quality, at system level, under resource constraints?

Well, from the statement of the aim of organisational governance and the definition of Quality at system level from this post – as that which “Maximises the Essential Value added to and retained by society resulting from the creation, use and disposal of products and services” at reducing Resource Intensity.” it is possible to say that the best Quality of Life available to citizens is that produced by the “Maximisation of the Essential Value available to society (resulting from the creation, use and disposal of products and services” at reducing Resource Intensity.)“

As the Educational System must enable this it follows that we can define Educational Quality as that which –

“Enables the liberation of the fulfillment, creativity and ingenuity in individuals and the collective that will lead to the maximisation and equitable distribution of their Quality of Life”

We have reached an important date when we have consumed in just over 7 months what the Earth can only replenish in the full year. Where our Children are worse off than we were at their age. The time has come to think what Rotary must become to face and help deal with these realities. I wrote this in 2009.

Rotary in Transition

As we enter the second decade of the third Millennium it is clear that Rotary International faces, like the rest of humanity a period of transition, of opportunities and threats.

A future that can be seen as a challenging adventure or an impossible challenge; the choice is ours.

This piece is adapted from a longer one on leadership that can be viewed and downloaded from the link at the end.

The One Planet World

It is clear that the pressure we are putting the Earth under is leading to resource shortages, both in absolute terms and relative distribution. For many of us, our experiment in living a multiple planet existence on the only planet we have is coming to a close.

This has far reaching consequences for how we will ‘manage for a One Planet World’ and the leadership skills Rotarians will need.

Quality of Life, the ‘BigQ’

At the centre of our adventurous challenge is a concept we have lost sight of, although it lies at the centre of the Rotary four way test

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

This is the Quality of our efforts and our relationships, the Quality of our lives.

In the One Planet World we can no longer accept, as Rotarians, the narrow view of Quality in our personal and professional lives and recognise that because a product or service satisfies, nay delights the customer, that it possesses ‘quality’ – if it leads to a ‘loss to society’ through economic, social and environmental failures.

A Mind Model

There is a One Planet Equation Mind Model (OPE) 1 = P x C x RI, that inevitably draws us its consequence; the First Law of Sustainability

‘In a resource constrained environment, goods and services can only grow at the rate at which their resource intensity can be reduced beyond balancing the One Planet Equation’.

From this vantage point Rotarians can look dispassionately at the One Planet World and say what this means for us as suppliers and customers of its products and services.

Resource Intensity

We have but One World and the only way we can balance the OPE in a resource constrained environment is if the

Resource Intensity, (RI) is never more than 1/PC.

This is the key to future strategic Rotary and personal leadership. We must

Seek to eliminate the cannots

Base our Rotary and business model on the musts.

Work to continually reduce the Resource Intensity of the products and services we create, use and dispose of.

Ethically and with consideration, replace energy with people (Ingenuity and creativity) in processes. These are your customers!

Replace products with services

Design for maintainability

Design for reliability

Work to continually reduce the losses in the essential processes remaining (improve quality).

Only in this way can we perceive how Rotary, and we as Rotarians are to lead in the One Planet World

Rotary in the 3rd Millennium

It is increasingly being recognised that we are coasting to the top of many resource curves, and are at or near the reality of the the Earth deciding our futures.

In leading for the future, Rotary International will have to cope with this reality.

Fortunately Rotarians are creative and enterprising and by looking at our future as the adventurous challenge it is, Rotary can be in the vanguard of creating the One Planet World.

Future Shock

We are suffering from what Alvin Toffler called ‘Future Shock’.

This being a state of confusion that arises when the past offers little guidance to dealing with the present and the future and we are in such a time, where the past offers few signposts – when increasing demand for goods and services meets declining resources to create them.

As was ever the case Rotary must be in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, right.

Anticipating and influencing the needs and actions of society will make the difference between success and failure.

As the management Guru Peter Drucker said “what the customer sees, thinks, believes and wants at any time determines if value is being created”

Instantaneous Adaptability

Leadership in the One Planet World requires us to be almost instantaneously adaptable as a service organisation and as individuals, with the vision and skills to create the same adaptability within the organizations we serve.

The resources available to us will be reducing over time and we must marshal them to continually increase the supply of goods and services that meet the essential emotional and spiritual needs of our customers.

Tomorrow’s Rotarians must have the skills and ability to liberate the creativity and ingenuity in their people and other stakeholders that will enable and drive change.

Learning and Teaching

In the One Planet World we must learn what our stakeholders are uniquely able to teach us if we are make maximum use of the resources available to us.

This learning must be instantaneously part of a ‘Virtuous Circle’ of improvement to ensure continual process learning and Resource Intensity reduction.

Rotarians in leading for ‘Future Advantage’ will

Remember Edward Deming’s adage that ‘Survival is not Compulsory’ for an Rotary Club, Rotary, or the human race.

Understand that time is not on our side.

See the future as a challenging adventure and not an impossible challenge.

Rotary – Future Advantage

This article is predicated on four tenets

That we are addicted to the hugely ineffective use of energy and other resources

That most current discourse is centred on the ’symptoms’ our addiction causes – climate change, environmental, social and economic failures

That human beings are, and have been, creative, ingenious and enterprising since the dawn of our species.

That our’ future is ‘our’ problem – that the Earth will most probably manage very well without us.

The OPE makes clear the effect our addiction is having and makes explicit the action needed to create the One Planet World – to continually reduce the resource intensity of all the products and services we consume.

This is the real challenge we face if we are to create an economic future that is more equitable, whilst eliminating the risks of environmental and social failures in its creation.

Rotary International as an organization has always wanted and worked so that communities and societies can continually improve the ‘quality of their lives’, and this can only be achieved, logically, by continually improving the ‘quality’ of the products and services we create as Rotarians and consume over their life-cycle.

We must ‘Do the Right Thing’ – be effective in our use of resources and ‘Do it Right Every Time’ – be efficient in our use of those resources. This is a Journey, not a destination and has at its core the need for an effort of ‘quality improvement’ driven by human creativity that the world has not yet experienced.

We face many challenges to achieving this, not least, the economic, environmental and social failures we are now experiencing and the natural response to ‘fight the last war with obsolete weapon’s’; but we have no option but to enter the future and we must envision what the best possible future can be and then continue to work to enable it.

After 150 years the World is coasting to the top of an oil curve but the view over the top is still obscured and we cannot see how steep the rest of the roller-coaster ride is
-whether the steepness of the useful energy curve will cause the car to come off the rails, or if we have the knowledge and skills to manage the transformational change required in societies and organisations to stay on them.
The aim of this blog is to bring together the knowledge and skills that will enable this tranformation. Your constructive comments are vital and welcome